Throughout the entire war, I have set foot in six different countries (Great Britain, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany) and fought the Axis in two. Perhaps it is ironic that I spent more time training in England than actually fighting in Italy and Holland. In Italy, I was a tank commander and so had easy contact with many of the locals. I had expected the locals to despise us as invaders, but they were ecstatic to finally have the Canadians liberate them. They were happy to be freed from the tyrannical regime of Mussolini, who had dragged them into another world war and failed to give back to Italy the glory days of the Roman Empire. In the short periods of peace as I toured the small Italian villages, the locals would often come out and cheer us on against the retreating Germans. Once, in the town of Aquino, I was even given a free cup of coffee and flowers by a grateful family. Fellow veterans, coming from different branches of the army, what were your experiences of the locals?
The most memorable encounter with the locals I met was incidentally on D-Day. At this time, I was a Second Class Master Gunner. As you may have already read in my post about D-Day, our forces were really having a hard time against the Germans, until French-Canadian soldiers landed and began fighting the Germans as well. This caused them to have to disperse. We chased them all through the city of Bernieres and drove them out. While the Nazis were being chased, a little girl and her older brother were walking along the beat-down road, and one of the soldiers ran into them. Naturally, the kids fell backward, and the Nazi pulled his pistol out, weapon at the ready, preparing to shoot the two children that nearly tripped him. Seeing this, I knew i had to attack while hidden. It did not matter much because the Nazi was in so much "fake" rage that he, himself did not know that he was finally separated from the running soldiers. This gave my a clear, safe, and hidden shot from behind the remains of what looked to be like a school building. After it was safe for me to reach out to the two children, I approached them to help them up. It seems like the knew that I was responsible for saving them, as they got up before I got to them, and ran to me, hugging me as if I was their parent. Today, I wonder to myself if their parents were still with them during the war, they were such nice kids...
ReplyDeleteOn my journeys, I have met few locals. But the locals I have met can be defined in two categories: thankful and angry. The thankful people usually were because we were bringing their goods to them and helped them sustain their towns. These people then turned into the angry category even though they were happy. This is because they had to pay for these goods sometimes - they weren't free. As such, people didn't like when we asked for them to pay for their products and resources. I know some may have thought we were bad people but these goods and resources were not cheap - and they were needed badly. I can still see people today that would have been classified into these types of people. I digress, nothing can be changed now, no matter how badly we would like it to be.
ReplyDelete(Major Rey Hypolito T.)
ReplyDeleteThere was this really cute family that I saw in Germany. They were selling little scrapes of food to us and by golly did they know how to sell things. They were trying to sell us dried potatoes, which does not sound so bad right? At least that’s what we thought. But when we got boat and we tried to cook what we thought was to be out jackpot, turned out to be a waste of money. They teased worse than what we were already being fed.
I have met a few locals but not as much as you guys. I mostly met these locals when I was refueling my Hurricane in Sweden. Sweden was a great country and very relaxed. I love the culture and the people are just too nice! Swedish people are not showy, but they are generous, kind and very calm. I realized they are very passionate about taking care of others and things, which makes them one of the friendliest people I have met. One time, while visiting the small town of Lund, which was near the Southern Coast of Sweden, I visited a small local lively restaurant near the town. When I got to the restaurant, the waiters were surprised but honoured to see me. They were very respectful and thankful that I was in the army. As a result, they gave me a free meal of all you can imagine... potatoes, cheese, sausages, fish... you name it! The food was delicious and would be one of the top meals I ate in my 6 years of service.
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